Say the Words

I’m publishing this here because this is a safe space to post this. I’m in the process of creating a new blog, which I will publish the link to when it’s ready. But for now, I wanted to share with you what 2015 culminated in for me. This was not without the most catastrophic series of events I’ve ever experience, but even before hindsight, I know why they happened. They led me here, back to the page. They pushed me to say the words so I could write the words. So I could release the burden, heal the girl and begin anew. And that’s exactly what this is – closing the heaviest, gnarliest door so I can step through those beckoning gateways, those points of light. This is Part 1, which will immediately be followed by Part 2.

Thank you, thank you, from the bottom of my being, thank you for reading.

Sometimes the next right thing comes out of nowhere.

It seems uninvited, sudden.

We may feel completely unprepared, but really…really…we’ve been crying out for it. Those long avoided confrontations. Those doors hanging ajar, squeaking and taking up far too much head and heart space. Those doors whose presence is enough of a constant reminder and obstructor. Those doors that act as shields, both protecting and neglecting. Those doors that just need to go.

Go. Fucking GO.

My heaviest, scariest, darkest, dankest door just shut.

It came out of nowhere. I don’t think it’s even registered yet. I’ve been dreading this confrontation.

Dreading the power of the emotions it would require.

Dreading the past I would have to relive in order to let it go.

Dreading the reaction, the denial, the fall out. The ripple effect.

Dreading the shadows that would swoop in on the heels of release, because they always do. That’s when they show up the strongest—when they’re threatened. When you’re done with them. When you realize the only reason they still have any power or presence is because you’re allowing them that real estate. You’re allowing them free, brutal passage.

You’re allowing them.

I was pushed into this confrontation. I was still dragging my heels, still allowing this person who had brutalized me, abused me, molested me…

I’ve never written that out before. I’ve never written the words. I’ve written around the words, but never the actual words.

Sexual abuse. Sexual abuse. Sexual abuse.

My father sexually abused me. He violated me, from the start. He continued to violate me. He continued and continued and continued. It stopped when I left for college. And I ran—I fucking ran so hard and at that point, I didn’t even know why. I just knew I hated my life and my family and myself and I wanted away from all of it. I knew something was wrong. Something was happening.

The movement through the silence of my room that would wake me at 3am. My waterbed moving from a repetitive push at the foot of the bed. I thought it was my brother. I yelled at him for being in my room. I heard nothing and convinced myself it was a ghost. I convinced myself my house was haunted and, as I did every other night that I heard the movement through the air, the dark presence next to my bed. I would shut down, force myself to sleep out of fear. I would shut down and go somewhere else. I would travel through the stars, the clouds, the galaxies. I sought shelter in the night sky. I’d envision myself lying on the grass outside my window, gazing up at the sky, cherubs ushering me to safety.

I would do all of this while my father molested me. While he violated me. While he killed me, night after night after black, degrading, annihilating night.

I can’t believe I’m finally writing this. It’s because I finally confronted him. Because his voice sickened me, his presence…there’s no word to describe what having to be in his presence did to me.

He pushed me to say the words, pushed me because I kept talking around them. Because I didn’t want to face it, to say it. I was afraid. I was a scared little girl, terrified of the shadows and the dark and the monster that lurked into her room to dominate and ruin her the way he had been dominated and ruined.

But here I am, writing them after saying them.

I’ve already received one message from a family member. One selfish, patronizing, repulsive message from a family member I used to think better of. But there was a gift in that.

She showed me her truth. She showed me her weakness. She showed me her inauthenticity. She showed me she doesn’t have my best interest at heart, only her own.

And when I rifled back my response, rife with raw emotion and truth, I was amazed at how much I didn’t feel. How much I didn’t care that I just told her, in much more eloquent terms, to fuck off. How ready I was to cut the cord without even realizing it until I was presented with the opportunity to do it.

That was a few weeks ago, and it only really started sinking in today, as I started writing this.

The words make the experience real—they give it validity, something I need from no one except myself. I couldn’t form the words before because I felt like an impostor, a fake. I hadn’t confronted the source of every issue in my life. I hadn’t said the words to the one person who needed to hear them. The one person who needed to be on the receiving end. The one person who needed to suffer because of and for them.

Because I’m done with being that person. I’m done with carrying the torch of torment and torture and lies and betrayal and violation.

I am ready to carry the torch of death though, because this part of me needs to be laid to rest. This part of me deserves to sleep, sweetly and peacefully, because I’ve been denying her this entire time. I’ve been disgusted with her and angry and bitter and repulsed, because she represented everything in me that I thought was wrong…undeserving…unworthy…damaged…fucked.

She was everything that I thought was holding me back—she was all that was misplaced and cast out: